By Sean Jones: Four-belt lightweight champion George Kambosos Jr. (20-0, 10 KOs) and WBC champion Devin ‘The Dream’ Haney (27-0, 15 KOs) has agreed to a deal to meet for the undisputed championship at 135 on June 5th at the Marvel Stadium in Melbourne, Australia.
As part of the deal, there’s a rematch clause, meaning that if Haney comes out victorious in the first fight, Kambosos can force a second contest, which will also take place in Australia.
It’s an excellent deal for Kambosos, as it ensures that both fights will take place in his native Australia, giving him a better chance of winning.
Here’s the exciting part. If Haney wins BOTH fights against the 28-year-old Kambosos, then the third match of his three-fight deal with ESPN / Top Rank will be against Vasyl Lomachenko, as long as he’s available to take the bout.
Lomachenko is currently fighting a war at home in Australia against the Russian invasion. The Haney vs. Lomachenko fight would be shown on ESPN pay-per-view, and it could bring in good numbers.
By that point, Haney would be coming off of back-to-back victories over Kambosos, and his popularity would likely be sky-high, much different from it now.
Of course, that’s assuming that Haney’s two wins over Kambosos aren’t the dull sleep-inducing wins that we saw from him lately against Joseph Diaz Jr. and Jorge Linares.
Above all, Haney needs to make it exciting while beating Kambosos because it won’t help him if he spoils using his jab & grab technique.
On paper, Haney’s most significant problem in emerging as the undisputed champion at the end of his three-fight deal with ESPN is getting past the talented Lomachenko because he’s a level above Joseph ‘Jojo’ Diaz Jr. and Jorge Linares.
Those two gave Haney loads of problems recently, staggering repeatedly. Indeed, Linares had Haney so severely hurt that he was forced to clinch nonstop from the ninth round to the twelfth last year in May.
Haney beat the 36-year-old Linares by a 12 round unanimous decision by the scores 116-112, 115-112, and 116-112. The referee let Haney get away with what appeared to be excessive holding, which should have resulted in point deductions & a disqualification. But the fight could have ended badly for Haney if the referee had done something about his holding.
Even with the referee letting Haney hold to stall out the clock from the ninth round on, Linares could have won if he had fought through the nonstop clinches.
Linares was looking at the referee to do his job of pry the Sea Lamprey-like Haney off of him each time, and it was labor-intensive work.
A quality fighter with a high ring-IQ like Lomachenko would have nailed the badly hurt Haney if he tried to stall out the clock against him by holding excessively for the final four rounds.
Haney, 23, signed a three-fight deal with Top Rank & Lou DiBella to fight on ESPN. His promoter DiBella had tried to put a deal together with DAZN but couldn’t agree. So, he wound up making a deal with Top Rank and ESPN.
What made the deal possible for Haney to get the Kambosos match was Vasyl Lomachenko choosing to stay in Ukraine and defend against the Russian invasion.
Top Rank already had a deal lined up for the former three-division world champion Lomachenko (16-2, 11 KOs) to challenge Kambosos Jr for his titles on the June 5th date. Still, Vasyl chose to stay in the warzone in Ukraine to defend against the Russians rather than taking the fight.
Once Lomachenko made it clear that he wouldn’t be available, Kambosos and his promoter DiBella offered the same deal to Haney, and he accepted it.
“BREAKING: Geroge Kambosos and Devin Haney have struck a deal for a June 5 bout in Melbourne, Australia for the undisputed lightweight championship, sources tell ESPN. Rematch in Australia if Haney wins. Multi-fight co-promotional deal for Haney with Top Rank and Lou DiBella” said Mike Coppinger.
“The fight will be broadcast in primetime on ESPN linear on June 4, per sources. Afternoon in Australia on June 5.”
